- A new debate is erupting in the shipping circles.
- With the 2020 sulfur cap looming, owners are now beginning to make moves toward compliance.
- Some are opting for scrubbers to curtail emissions, while others see this as a potentially bad decision.
Following articles on 2020 Sulfur Cap, quite a few questions raised about scrubber technology and if fleets opting to install this equipment presented a better investment than those going the compliant-fuel route.
It seemed prudent to review the pros and cons of this technology, in the hope that investors would have more information available to aid their decision-making.
The decision to implement a global sulfur cap of 0.50% m/m (mass/mass) in 2020, revising the current 3.5% cap, was announced by the IMO, the United Nations regulatory authority for international shipping on October 27, 2016. This will affect as many as 70,000 ships.
IMO’s guidance to the maritime industry:
“Ships can meet the requirement by using low-sulphur compliant fuel oil.”
An increasing number of ships are also using gas as a fuel as when ignited it leads to negligible sulphur oxide emissions. This has been recognised in the development by IMO of the International Code for Ships using Gases and other Low Flashpoint Fuels (the IGF Code), which was adopted in 2015.
Another alternative fuel is methanol which is being used on some short sea services.
Ships may also meet the SOx emission requirements by using approved equivalent methods, such as exhaust gas cleaning systems or “scrubbers,” which “clean” the emissions before they are released into the atmosphere. In this case, the equivalent arrangement must be approved by the ship’s administration (the flag state).
Expectation and reality
Originally, the IMO expected between 2,000 to 3,000 vessels would undergo scrubber retrofits but according to BIMCO, just around 450 vessels have scrubbers installed – less than 1% of a global merchant fleet.
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Source: Seeking Alpha
